If you’re like me, you have 10 different business ideas in the back of your head.

But whether you’re an entrepreneur or you work inside a big organization, how do you test those ideas to find out if they can really get off the ground? On the January 10 #WorkTrends podcast and Twitter chat, I talked to Boris Gocnharov, co-founder of Moosetank, a firm that helps startups and small companies build products.

Here’s the advice he shared for anyone with big ideas and a lot of questions about how to get started.

Get Started Now

First of all, Boris says, there’s no time like the present. I asked him what the perfect time is to test a business hypothesis. His answer? Right now.

“If you’ve got an idea and you think there’s value for customers, test it right away. If you have free time, just start doing that.”

In other words, don’t sit on your idea without taking action. “Ideas come to many people at the same time, so if you don’t try your idea right away, maybe someone will be quicker than you tomorrow. You don’t have to waste a lot of time,” he says.

It’s always a good plan to research your target market, but don’t paralyze yourself by over-researching. “The main idea is not to overwhelm yourself with analysis, because you can just have information anxiety. You don’t move on. You don’t move forward. You actually can block yourself from testing or trying your business hypothesis because you get too much information,” he says.

Simplify Your Idea

Boris says that you don’t need a complex business plan before you jump in and start testing your idea. Strip your idea down to its essence and start there.

“Most business hypotheses can be tried in a very basic form. I think you can sacrifice almost everything except the core feature, or the core service. The only thing you need is a response from your audience that they’re ready to pay for that.”

Find the Easiest Way to Get Your Idea to Your Customers

When you’re ready to launch your idea, Boris says, you shouldn’t waste your time building a complicated website or perfect marketing materials.

“There’s no need to develop a complex platform with a lot of pages and services. You can just build something really quickly, like one single page, or an email sequence or a video campaign. The most important thing that your customers can give you is their answers and a form of purchase. If they can purchase your product, that’s the bare minimum you need.”

Then, stick to your plan.

“The more you invest in your idea, the harder it is to roll it out. You might plan to spend a week on your website. Then [plan] to not spend more than $1,000 on your ad campaign. You can bring unlimited effort to any idea in the world, but your goal is to build a successful business. The first and most important thing is to stick to the initial plan you had in your mind.”

Be Honest with Yourself

If your idea isn’t panning out, say you’re spending more on getting a new customer in the door than they’re paying for your product, it’s okay to be honest with yourself. If one idea doesn’t work, you can always move on to your backup plan or your next venture.

There are lots of unique marketing opportunities on social media. It helps businesses connect directly with their audience and offers speedy feedback. One of the major problems faced by a lot of business owners is that social media outlets are not suitable for every marketing goal or type of business. You can make great strides in your social media marketing if you know the purpose of the different outlets. Check out our breakdown of some of the most common social media platforms and the best way to take advantage of them.

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Facebook

Facebook is head and shoulders above all the others with regards to the number of users with 1.86 billion users monthly, which offers you an array of potential customers.

Benefits of Facebook Marketing:

Targeting.Facebook’s success in marketing to a large extent can be attributed to its ability to target users according to their interests. Its targeting abilities have eliminated the need to procure lists (which can be quite expensive). You can post and advertise your business on particular groups and platforms according to demographics like special interests, location, age, gender, and household. It even helps you target particular niches like dog owners, sponsors of veteran causes, people in need of baby products, and so on.

Versatility.A lot of social media platforms are limited in particular areas (example number of characters for each post), or are more suited for just one medium (e.g. visual content). On the other hand, Facebook supports different post lengths, type of contents (text-heavy, visual, live videos, e.t.c.) and marketing goals.

Direct Contact. You can incorporate essential contact information and any call to action of your choice through your Facebook business page. This makes it easier for consumers who are interested to have direct access to you.

Analytics. Another major advantage of Facebook is the analytics it offers. You can use it to track down the touch point that led to a conversion or to measure Facebook engagements according to particular initiatives like shares and link clicks.

Limitations of Facebook Marketing:

About 45% of Facebook users are over 35 years old and those in the 55+ range are increasing every day. Therefore, if you’re targeting a younger audience, it might be better for you to try other social media platforms. Also, Ad Manager gives you only a limited copy space to create your ads – it does not allow more than 90 characters so you’ll have to learn to use few words to pass your message across!

Twitter

Twitter has about 313 million monthly subscribers, which has made it very popular for a lot of small businesses.

Benefits of Twitter Marketing:

Communication. Although Facebook is very good for online advertising, the strength of Twitter lies in its direct communication skills. Twitter users use the platform to communicate directly with the brands and people that interest them.

Deeper Connections.Twitter users use the platform to acquire information as well as share their own opinions. Twitter provides a great opportunity to connect with certain groups and develop relationships according to what is important to both parties. Twitter is the perfect platform if you’re interested in doing any of the following:

Limitations of Twitter Marketing:

Just like Facebook, Twitter also offers targeted ad campaigns according to user demographics and follows up analytics information. But theirs is not as robust as that of Facebook. The well-known 140 character limit for every post is another limitation of Twitter.

Instagram

With 600 million visitors monthly, Instagram’s popularity is definitely gaining steam, making it a premium platform for marketing your business and connecting with consumers.

Benefits of Instagram Marketing:

Targeting.Its ability to target audience is the same as that of Facebook which is its parent company, so you enjoy the same benefits when you want to narrow down your audience.

Engagement.Their users are 58 times likely to share a post from their platform than any from Facebook and 120 times more if it were from twitter. These numbers alone can convince you if you’re still undecided about venturing into Instagram ads.

Brand Awareness.Instagram is the perfect avenue to create the voice and personality of your brand. You can get a more lasting impression from images than texts. By creating the perfect scene for your brand and even associating your products and services with a particular look, activity or lifestyle, you help your users relate on a deeper level, which gives them the desire to incorporate whatever you’re selling as part of their lives.

Limitations of Instagram Marketing:

73% of Instagram users are between the ages of 15-35. And about half of them have college degrees or are professionals. Another disadvantage of Instagram is that at present, posts and direct messages don’t support clickable links, which is why it is necessary to make a copy and paste easy for users or make it easy to recall and remember.

LinkedIn

LinkedIn has about 106 million users monthly, which means its audience is quite large.

Benefits of Marketing on LinkedIn:

Targeting.LinkedIn offers very specific targeting opportunities if your target is to reach people according to their industry or type of job. If your main aim is to conduct B2B marketing, then LinkedIn is perfect for you. You can also get basic targeting parameters like gender, location, age and so on.

Advertising. One major advantage of advertising with LinkedIn is that the users actually expect it! After all, LinkedIn is a social media platform designed for professional networking, so they’ll be more receptive to your adverts.

Limitations of Marketing on LinkedIn:

Though LinkedIn is a very lucrative avenue for marketing, it is however not for everybody. The platform users are only there to advance their businesses and careers.

Another major disadvantage of marketing on LinkedIn is its advertising cost. Even if you see high impression numbers, the odds are that they’ll have very low click-through rates. You’ll be forced to rely more on your conversation pages rather than the connections and interactions made through social media. If you notice high rates of conversation after users visit your landing page, then LinkedIn might just be an excellent avenue for you.

Pinterest

Pinterest has about 150 million monthly subscribers, which is a lot smaller than that of the other social media platforms. But that does not take away from the fact that it is still a very effective tool for marketing. Close to 90% of the users of this platform have made purchases according to what they saw on the platform validating their willingness to find products and services through their Pinterest searches.

Benefits of Pinterest Marketing:

Website Traffic. It is easier to drive traffic to external sites from Pinterest. Users can be directed to a site of their choice with just one click or tap because all the images uploaded to Pinterest are hyperlinked to their source automatically.

Imagery. Due to the fact that Pinterest is a sharing platform designed to offer visual inspiration, interior design, home goods, industry professionals, travel, and so on to users, there are enormous benefits in engaging with a Pinterest audience to do business.

Brand Awareness.You can use Pinterest to promote your brand awareness through the use of promoted pins and even use the platform’s analytical offerings to track their performance. Though their metrics and data are not as strong as that of other social media sites, however, if you need something simple with a relatively high rate of conversion, then Pinterest is the perfect solution for you.

Limitations of Pinterest Marketing:

With about 68% female users, Pinterest is mostly populated by women. This means that Pinterest might not be the right platform for a B2B marketer to advertise.

From what we’ve discussed, it is obvious that all the social media platforms have the same basics in terms of online marketing opportunities. Choosing the appropriate one will depend largely on the type of audience you’re targeting and the type of campaigns you want to create. Regardless of whichever one you chose, it is essential for you to track results so you don’t end up wasting your time on campaigns that will not benefit you the way they ought to.

It is not always easy to locate new clients for agencies that deal with web development, and knowing how to create beautiful websites is not always enough. Fortunately, there are plenty of ways to branch out and locate more clients regardless of whether you’re a veteran in the business or just starting out. Below are six tips that can be used by web development agencies to locate new clients.

Make use of social media

This might appear a little obvious, but social media is an excellent way of generating free publicity and potentially reaching out to a lot of people. However, you should learn to be picky when selecting your preferred channels. You don’t necessarily have to advertise on all of them, but ensure that the ones you pick are suitable for your business; the bottom line is that you should go with the ones where you’ll likely going to find your clients.

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Pinterest is an amazing way of displaying all the wonderful websites you have designed, and LinkedIn, on the other hand, is a great tool for networking with potential clients, peers, and partners. You can create a profile that has all the important keywords and try to interact with other users in other to develop strong relationships.

Take out time to create a great strategy that you can realistically see yourself maintaining as time goes on. Consider the right content for each platform:

– Facebook is perfect for laid back and relaxed content;

– LinkedIn is best utilized for professional content or anything business related;

– If the content involves short and snappy updates or anything that is currently trending, Twitter is likely the appropriate channel.

If your aim is to be professional and serious, it is recommended that you go with LinkedIn; if your business is more edgy and hip, you should probably go with Instagram or Twitter. But always have it at the back of your mind when using social media that, it should be used for interacting with potential clients and building relationships, not for selling.

Lastly, make sure the groups you join have some connection to your skills (LinkedIn and Google+ are perfect for this). Try interacting with other users and answering questions. When you connect with people regularly, share resources with them and answer their questions, before you know it, you’ll start getting more work.

Blog posts

Another great way of boosting your credibility as a top designer is by writing your own blog. The most important thing is to let potential clients know that you know what you’re doing, which means you have to create content that shows that you’re skilled at web development. You can also decide to write guest posts for some of the top blogs in your industry – by doing this, you get to enjoy more exposure, get backlinks and build relationships.

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Boosting your name recognition and enhancing your credibility should be the focus, but it shouldn’t stop you from producing great contents that are helpful, interesting and engaging. Try to create a balance with your content, for instance, “Tips to help Web Developers to do A, B, and C,” or a form of instructional series for people who are new to the business. Though using humor is not a bad idea, you should, however, be careful not to resort to it at all times, and make sure you write in a manner that every developer can understand.

Connect with other freelancers

One of the best ways of getting client referrals is by networking and developing relationships with freelancers. There are certain freelance web developers who are fortunate to have more inquiries about work than they can even handle. Some of them are even contacted to handle jobs that are beyond their level of expertise. Fortunately, a lot of these web developers are ready to help out their peers, because even if they’re incapable of handling the job themselves, they’ll want to help out the potential client by recommending someone they trust. And there’s always a possibility of you repaying the favor by recommending them to other potential clients. You should have it at the back of your mind that, all these people don’t necessarily have to be your competition; you should see them as your community and realize that you can benefit a lot by building positive relationships with them.

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Another great place to meet developers is at forums. You should check out sites like Freelance Gossip, Web Design Forum and Digital Point. You can also search for information about expos, meet-ups, and conventions organized for designers and developers. Try attending some e-commerce expos in other to meet potential clients and potential partners. Don’t forget to go with some business cards that have details about your website, your contact information, and information on the skills you offer.

The same thing can be said about web designers. They are just as important as other web developers with regards to getting more clients and building relationships. You can benefit a lot as a web developer if you start developing a working relationship with web designers because there are lots of web designers that are not particularly good at coding and a lot of their businesses have grown to the extent that they need to outsource some of their work. This will afford you an opportunity to develop a long term relationship with a web designer, providing you an opportunity to form a partnership for projects or refer clients to each other for any work that the referrer is incapable of competing.

You can also try forums and social media to contact designers. Look for them on LinkedIn, Twitter and Google+, including forums like Graphic Design forum, Web Pro Café and Designerstalk for any designer who is in search of a partnership.

Work on existing sites

Pick a well-known website and redesign it in your own unique way, then send it to the person in charge of the company explaining why you made the alterations. This is a unique way for designers and web developers to get work, and it also gives designers the opportunity to get creative and show their peers as well as potential clients how skilled they are. By doing this, you’ve proved that you have special ideas that can make another person’s business better, and that you’re capable of creating these ideas.

Start for free

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This particular advice is for upcoming designers. Free work might have a poor reputation, but it is necessary for upcoming designers who are new to the business, as it helps them develop their portfolios, gain valuable experience, make all the right connections and go after every possible opportunity. Also, approaching charities with badly designed websites and offering to help them improve on it, is another great idea. Apart from benefiting you, this also helps those who really need free work.

Evaluate your own website

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Your website must be of the highest standard, else nobody will want to patronize you. Your site should have a gallery of some of your previous works including testimonials from clients, your contact information, your skills and a list of all your qualifications and credentials.

If you follow these tips, you’ll certainly get approached more regularly for work. If you do great work and put yourself out there, you will definitely get the clients you deserve.

On a weekly basis, there are Millions of business rides made with Uber, however, the charm that Uber provides can be easily overshadowed by the stress of distinguishing between business and private rides.

When one is faced with the task of filling in the expenditures, getting the appropriate receipt, uploading or getting the receipt printed, as well as remembering the purpose of the ride, the whole process can become tiresome.

You need to create a business profile on Uber to enable you to distinguish between your business and private rides. A business profile will enable you to link a business credit card and also email address in your rider account on Uber to assist you to handle your business rides and monitor your expenditures.

The Advantages of having a business profile on Uber

You don’t have to deal with paper receipts. Say goodbye to wrinkled trip receipts in your pocket!

Charge the appropriate credit card. Never mistakenly shell out on your own cash for a business trip again.

Add expenditure notes as well as project codes. Monitor the purpose of your ride.

Business invoice = business email. Forget about looking for the appropriate receipt expenditure.

Weekly or month-to-month trip information. Save your precious time with business ride summaries.

It is usually frightening giving out your cherished baby to some strange individual on the internet. But then, it shouldn’t be a frightening thing by any means.

So you’ve thought about employing a virtual assistant for your website or web-based business, but the truth is, you aren’t certain if you really need to. It could be frightening giving out your cherished baby to some strange individual online. However, the truth is, it shouldn’t be a frightening thing by any means. It ought to be fun!

Using the services of a virtual assistant might take away a great deal of your pressure and save some of your time. I’ve put together a summary of 10 good reasons why you need to engage a virtual assistant… like immediately!

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Additional time available for you

Engaging the services a virtual assistant to assist you managed some areas of your online business frees up valuable time for you. Say goodbye to late nights, cramming to have all your social media content ready. Your virtual assistant will efficiently take care of it.

Your personal information is protected

I understand it may be frightening disclosing your private details, however, there is ALWAYS a privacy term in the contractual agreement. Your sensitive data is absolutely secure. You can even find a preference, like LastPass, that enables the Virtual Assistant to log on to your websites without actually being shown your private username and password.

Eliminate severe headaches

The biggest time-wasting process is working out the best way to do something which you have zero ideas where you should even begin from. Say goodbye to unending YouTube lessons, say goodbye headaches since your virtual assistant can get it done it for you!

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They understand what they are doing

Virtual assistants are experts in anything from admin job, to programming, to advertising and marketing jobs. If they tell you they are experts in it, odds are they have already executed it on countless occasions.

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Lower your expenses

You will get rid of the operating costs of engaging a staff since virtual assistants operate as private contractors. This means that you don’t spend money on insurance, holidays, and so on.

They can assist you to expand

Virtual assistants can help you save precious time, and that means you have a lot more time to develop and expand the business. If they are experts in marketing and advertising, like me, they can assist you to develop your membership, mailing list, subscribers and even more. Bigger following means increased clients, which translates to more income!

Maintain your sanity

Yes! That is absolutely right. Everybody does need an escape from time to time. Particularly for individuals operating online business or website. Stress is harmful to your well-being. Using the services of a Virtual Assistants will assist you to maintain your sanity since they help you get rid of some of the work burden.

Zero waiting time, no teaching

Do you desire a virtual assistant right now? You will definitely get someone, engage someone, and get them begin working all within a day. Because they are experts in specific areas as I stated before, you won’t need to bother about wasting precious time teaching them too.

Secure your life back

Using the services of a virtual assistant saves your precious time. This implies a longer time for your loved ones, additional time for spare-time activities and even additional time for you to simply unwind!

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They understand what it’s like

Virtual assistants are entrepreneurs just like you! Therefore they understand what is required to own a profitable business. They understand just how demanding it is. It is great to have somebody you can connect with when it comes to operating your personal internet business.

Managing web project can be a daunting task and the challenge is further exacerbated by the fact that web project is very an inclusive process and extensively covers numerous processes and operations. It is quite common to be stuck with the challenge of web design, app design, and programming, site hosting and be completely unable to figure out a clear roadmap to deliver a decent job. Given the aforesaid, it becomes clear that implementing and managing a web project is quite challenging. Luckily, I recently uncovered this amazing software that offers unique solutions, allowing you to manage web project with tremendous ease.

Trello offers a host of relevant functionalities while creating a clear workflow path that allows you to accommodate and follow-up on all of the operations that you need to implement. After experiencing the efficacy of Trello firsthand, I have compiled a list of some its most impressive benefits and they are succinctly explained below:

There is no hidden cost: one of the best attribute of Trello is that there are no hidden costs thus allowing you to utilize the software’s most important functionalities unencumbered. Nonetheless, it has an advanced from that would require payments. Getting the advanced version of Trello would be needless and somewhat profligate for an outworkers and small groups.

It offers a clear workflow path: it is usually expected and quite pervasive to get confused and overwhelmed when handling a web project. Trello helps to eliminate this challenge while offering a clear workflow path that allows you to implement each task sequentially until completion. You have a clear list of indicators that gives an accurate insight on where you are, what you have accomplished, what needs to be done and what is required for a successful completion.

Simplified operations: Trello encourages simplified operations by giving a single card to a single mission. This feature makes it very easy to articulate various missions and to follow-up on various developments under each mission. Trello permits numerous comments with the most recent ones being placed at the beginning. When you require sub mission, you can always create a checklist. In the case where you want to launch a site, Trello makes it possible to add Google Analytics tracking code, verify that URLs are accurate and much more.

Trello supports partnership: one of the distinctive benefits of Trello is hinged on the fact that it supports the partnership. Trello makes it easy for you to gather information on how a project is coming along from other out workers for a unified and consistent operation. Trello allows for your name to be stated during remarks, it would include you as a participant of the specific card and would facilitate subscription to the card. Trello also puts you in touch with every message making sure that you are updated on every development. Trello helps organize customers’ jobs with a heightened level of proficiency. Every inquiry or job has a designated card. Quite frankly, it is very convenient for customers and partners to access and monitor a card with just one inquiry than an email containing numerous facts.

Accurate calendar for operations: Trello offers an accurate calendar and date that clearly specifies when you are to carryout various crucial tasks. Once you subscribe, you would be entitled to warnings a day before closing date. Trello uses color gauges to reflect the extent of exigency. Grey shows that you still have lots of time. On the other hand, Red shows that you need to accelerate implementation while Pink shows that you have exhausted the allotted time for the job.

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It retains all project documents in a single place: Trello obviates the challenge of having to search for file attachments in your Inbox, as attaching files to cards is much more convenient. Having your project proposal uploaded is certainly a brilliant step. This would enable to identify things that are not contained in the range of work you were given originally. This feature is reinforced with pictures for convenience.

Generate cards from the email: when there are fresh subjects while you are in your inbox, you can simply delegate it to Trello and a fresh cared would be generated to cover that subject.

Advanced functionalities: the power-ups feature of Trello provides a range of advanced functionalities which extensively includes Dropbox for cloud computing, calendar to keep in touch with all of your jobs and closing date, Evernotes, slack for amplified messaging and much more. You would find that all of these advanced functionalities would amplify the efficiency of your operations while making combined efforts remarkably better.

Kindly make your thoughts on Trello available and don’t hesitate to use Trello today!

DesignModo has received much praise in the past bringing great, intuitive, and well-designed tools to the market and so we decided to put together a review of their product, the Slides Framework.

Now, before we start off, it is important to understand that this product is not for everyone and this review is by no means a comparison of capabilities against WordPress. With that said, everyone’s requirements are different and if you are looking for a convenient and super time effective way to create a simple one-page website then you should definitely turn your head towards Slides’ direction.

Whenever Designmodo brings out something new, I get quite excited. Why, you may ask? Because I personally think Designmodo makes some of the prettiest — and often most innovative — webpage-building elements around. So when I heard for the first time about their release, Slides, I was as keen as ever to learn more, find out how it worked and, perhaps most importantly, see whether or not it lives up to expectations.

What are Slides?

As mentioned above, Slides is a framework by DesignModo. It is based on its own CSS3, JavaScript, and HTML5 language with a unique code and structure that lets you create, with minimum effort, visually captivating single-page websites with a lot of built-in options. It basically consists of 64 slides that you can use in whichever combination you’d like in order to create your own unique website. This website would, of course, display its content in a transition slider manner i.e. only one slide is displayed at a time and the slides keep changing as the reader scrolls.

This becomes a fluid manner for presenting content and looks great while working the part too. It is easy enough to be used by just about anyone with a little bit of web development knowledge (HTML, FTP server).

Take a look at the Official Slides Demo and you should see what I mean.

Slides Features

Time Saving

Time is on your side if you are working with Slides.

You start out by logging into their online interface which is called Generator. From there on you simply go along selecting from the wide range of slides and put them in the order you want them in. You will then set up the animations you’d like for the transition effect between slides and preview what the finished product will look like. If you are happy with what you see then you can download a .zip file containing what is essentially your website ready to be uploaded to your hosting server.

This whole process can be completed in minutes and it is fairly simple and easy. Keep in mind that you will need to edit and replace the demo data and images with the one’s that you plan to publish. Although this is a simple task for someone with basic programming knowledge it can be tricky for someone who’s not the least bit programming literate.

2. Comes with Templates

Slides come with a library of 64 slides that you can mix and match according to your preference and it can result in some pretty amazing end products.

But if you find yourself at a loss then DesignModo has 15 well-balanced templates with a great design that you can pick to start your website with – there are options for everyone here! Beautiful slides, retina ready display, and tons of options to choose from for background images or a white background if that is more suited towards your needs.

These slide templates can be arranged in whichever way you’d like so they can be presented as a variety of things – event sales, personal promotions or campaigns, product launches – making your workflow much easier all the while giving you a ton of flexibility. You also have the ability to directly add images from sites such as Unsplash and Pexels for obtaining more free images for your projects.

3. Amazing Animation Effects

Slides also ship with custom animations that you can add to your slides. While these might not be the flashiest of animations out there, they are well-suited and bring subtle brilliance to the overall presentation of your website.

There are a number of different animation styles to choose from, such as Stack, Zen, Zoom, and Film among others, and effects setting panel that lets you set up the speed and smoothness of your slide transition animations, as well as the option between animated and static elements. You can also change the direction of your slide transition i.e. have your site scroll vertically or horizontally, from this panel.

While these may not seem like a lot of options, not many are needed when you are working with what Slides is providing you with. Which happens to be a good thing as all of them look decent and there is no need to spend a great deal of time experimenting with what fits best.

4. Huge Components Library

Slides ship with a huge components library that features unique and stylish elements to help you add more visual appeal to your custom slides. Webmasters can make creative combinations of various components to create a masterpiece without having to code a single line. The wide-range of carefully crafted components empowers users to elegantly present their business to visitors.

According to user reviews, Slides offers an all-out designing platform that enables users to create all kinds of landing pages. By leveraging the different components, users can quickly piece together a unique, custom landing page within minutes.

Some of the most commonly used components in this space include buttons, videos, images, pricing tables, testimonials, e-commerce elements, background images, and much more. In addition to this, all of the components are fully customizable which allows users to modify them to fit their site’s brand. Landing pages are vital to the success of any business and Slides’ huge library of components makes it infinitely easier to create them without having to invest a significant amount of time.

Drawbacks

Slides is a very focused product: it can only be used to produce single-page websites with slide-like (sliding, fading or a few other types of animations) transitions — if you’re after anything else, this simply isn’t for you!

Priced at $249, Slides isn’t cheap. According to the official website, however, the price is for ‘unlimited sites’ (for more on this — and other things, such as browser support — see the official Slides FAQ), meaning this isn’t a price you’ll pay for every site you create with it! That said, if you’re only going to use it to create a single site, it’s arguably a little on the steep side.

And, of course, Slides can, by its very nature — being simply constructed of HTML, a dollop of CSS, a sprinkling of JavaScript and a few media files — only be used to create single web pages. This means it is quite limiting (although not necessarily in a bad way) when used on its own.

Wrapping It Up

So what can we gather from all of this? For the webmasters who do require all of the features that Slides provides, it is very hard to go wrong with Slides because it gives you everything you need to build unique, professional-looking websites. It is a complete system. Different businesses and other professionals can undoubtedly utilize this great tool for many projects and derive great value from it. It has a lot of potential for productivity and that combined with ease of use makes it a great convenience for its users.

It would be safe to conclude that, while a great product that is nicely rounded and well-designed, Slides just isn’t for everyone. It is not a tool for building a large, multi-page website, giant inventory system, an e-store, or even a decent sized blog. But then it would be very unreasonable to expect it to do so much as it is not designed to do these tasks. What it is designed to do it does very, very well so this point is a distinction rather than a criticism.

On the off chance that you are living as an expat or are maintaining a business depending on freelancers or abroad representatives, you doubtlessly know the battle of sending cash every month and how expensive it can be the many expenses that universal cash exchanges can bring about and the currency exchange rates can undoubtedly lessen your underlying spending plan.

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Numerous people have made used by PayPal of throughout the years, however of late an ever-increasing number of individuals are fulfilled by the administration given by TransferWise. So we chose so compose an article contrasting them both with see which gives more an incentive to its clients.

Who is the Winner?

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Albeit both are great choices for profiting exchanges on the web, TransferWise is a superior decision for the accompanying reasons.

Advantages:

Smaller fees.

Better currency exchange rates.

No hidden charges

Geared towards both small remittances payments and large transfers.

Disadvantage: Slightly longer on-boarding process.

We shall proceed immediately to the examination and avoid any presentation for each organization, as you can read more about them in this Transferwise survey or at the PayPal.com site.

Safety

Is TransferWise safe? Is Paypal safe? Are these genuine organizations or scams? There is a truly great question, thinking of you as a deceptive organization can undoubtedly scam you your assets without exchanging them anyplace. See our piece on money transfer scams and scandals here.

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Background information:

Paypal is one of the soonest new companies of the web that was established even before the website rise of 2000. It was built up by 4 excited youths in 1998, and converged with X.com (claimed by Elon Musk) in 2000. It went on an IPO in 2002. Not long after the IPO it was obtained in full by eBay for USD 1.5bn and turned into an auxiliary organization, just to turn off from it in 2014. From that point forward, it has developed to wind up noticeably the turn into the biggest advanced installment organizations on the planet, with additional more than 173m clients, and its market top is nearly USD 50bn. It has additionally procured Xoom in 2014.

Transferwise is a moderately late startup that was set up just 5 years back by two youthful businesses visionary; however, has a reasonable possibility of turning into the following example of overcoming adversity in the realm of advanced installments and settlements. Since its beginning, it has been getting funds of more than $100m by the absolute most striking financial specialists out there. These incorporate Richard Branson from Virgin (which additionally as a money transfer service under their Virgin Money brand), and Peter Thiel – one of the pioneer originator of Paypal. Despite the fact that Transferwise doesn’t make even near what Paypal does or has a massive customer base like it, it is gradually turning into a noticeable organization in its sub-segment of global payment. It has answered to move more than $500m every month.

Compliance:

Transferwise is approved as an installment office by British FCA, while Paypal is affirmed to work by the American SEC. The SEC is thought to be somewhat more astringent; however both are viewed as the top world controllers for budgetary establishments. As a component of this,

To start an installment with Transferwise you require experiencing a couple steps and submit duplicates of authoritative records like your ID, driver’s permit, or passport. So before you can send or pull back any sum, you will experience a screening procedure. Paypal has an alternate check process which is more able to the reality individuals utilize it to send generally low sums – you just need to supply pertinent data about yourself and connect it to your bank account.

Conclusions:

Both organizations are to a great degree dependable. They have never been associated with beguiling customers in any capacity, and considering how enormous they are, and the measure of individuals working for them (Paypal have more than 15,000 representatives around the world, and Transferwise has more than 600), together with the supervision they always have from controllers, both ought to be regarded as safe to use.

Supported countries

Both organizations enable you to send cash to and from any nation on the planet. So far you are connected to the internet; you can make transfer of funds rapidly and effortlessly.

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Total number of countries supported by TransferWise: 55

Total number of countries supported by PayPal: 202

Conclusions:

Paypal has essentially higher reach than Transferwise, however, Transferwise is covering the most well-known locales where our readers originated from and the most mainstream cash sets, so for a great many people that wouldn’t have an immense effect.

Mobile Apps

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Headway in innovation has taken into consideration cell phones to get less expensive. This why the total number of cell phone users worldwide is set to develop exponentially from the 2.6 billion clients recorded in 2014 to 6.1 billion by 2020. Also, despite the fact that the numbers in Europe and Americas have been leveling over the most recent couple of years, the African nations are contributing a great deal to this development. Having a mobile app to profit exchanges is exceptionally helpful, and both organizations have grown extremely decent and straight forward cell phone applications for their clients. Among the first class in the business.

Here is a side by side comparison of the Transferwise mobile application and the Paypal mobile application in terms of functionality.

Topic

Transferwise app

Paypal app

Send Money Abroad

Yes

Yes

Send Money – Same Currency

No

Yes

Withold Funds Without Withdrawing

No

Yes

Know Exact Amount Recipient Receives

Yes

No

Payment Fee

No ($2 below $400)

No

Recipient Fee

No

Yes – a whooping 2.9%

Foreign Exchange Fees

Yes, 0.5% – 1.5%

Yes, 3.9% or more

Pay without registering

No

Sort of (Available with some merchants, not through app)

As should be obvious, the applications have altogether different capacities.

Paypal application is appraised 4/5 stars by Android clients, with more than 410,000 audits and 10,000,000 – 50,000,000 introduces, making it may be the most downloaded financial application on the planet.

Transferwise, being much more up to date with more specialties is positioned by just 10,000 analysts with a rating of 4.5/5. It has been downloaded 500,000 – 1,000,000 times.

Conclusions:

Both are great applications. Paypal is significantly more famous and much more far reaching, however, Transferwise demonstrates an undeniable favorable position in expenses.

TransferWise: iOS and Android

PayPal: iOS and Android

Speed

Transferwise is not the speediest method for moving cash abroad as a result of the long consistency. On the off chance that you are in the UK or in Europe you can be consequently affirmed by the framework by just providing the pertinent photocopies of your documents even around the same time, however, for customers from different districts, the on-loading process can be longer (still not exactly with organizations like Moneycorp).

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With Paypal, the onboarding procedure can likewise take a brief period before you can withdraw assets into your ledger, yet opening bookkeeping and sending cash to another country can be momentarily. Many individuals are utilizing PayPal in light of the fact that receipt of cash sent inside (PayPal account to PayPal account) is momentary. Be that as it may, if the beneficiary needs to withdraw that cash, he needs to hold up 2-3 business days to have it in his account or have the capacity to get it at an ATM. So on the off chance that you require money; the holding up time is practically the same for both organizations.

Bottom line: PayPal is snappier to send cash to another country; however in the event that you get cash through it, it can take a couple days to clear.

Costs

An essential part for everybody is identified with expenses and what amount will cost you per exchange. So how about we investigate:

TransferWise

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The center of its business and the principle objective is to transfer funds easily, shoddy and straightforward. Along these lines, you can see and know the amount you will send, the amount it will cost you and how much the beneficiary will get at last.

The exchange charges are by and large just 1%. For specific destinations, it is just 0.5% and for others, it can be as much as 1.5%. Settled expenses: $2 for little exchange beneath the $400 stamp.

There is no cash exchange expense, because of its P2P cash exchange framework.

Receive cash from a local financial institute, so no recipient wire charges

Fund exchange through a local wire or a check card.

PayPal

There are costs that you are not educated of before or subsequent to making the exchange. You can’t plainly perceive the amount you are paying for your exchange.

Geared towards debit card payments only (or, if you have available funds in your account, you can use them).

A beneficiary ought to pay 3.4% of the money gotten by him.

The foreign exchange fees, notwithstanding the beneficiary charges, are 3.9% to 4.9%.

It has an expense that you don’t know about (unless you look into heretofore)

The exchange rates are quite terrible to a level they are more regrettable than the High Street banks.

Conclusions:

This is the zone that matters most and Transferwise totally overwhelms it. In spite of the fact that Paypal could be snappy, simple and dependable the same amount of as Transferwise and significantly more, its payment expenses are extraordinarily high, and it is very difficult to know how much cash your beneficiary will get, which makes it a TERRIBLE method for sending funds abroad.

Overall conclusion on TransferWise vs PayPal

Both organizations fill a need and they are utilized by numerous individuals consistently, yet in the event that we are alluding to the regale of sending cash to a bank account, TransferWise wins in view of its plan of action and low expenses (of which there are few). Furthermore, on the off chance that you have to make consistent regularly scheduled fund transfers, TransferWise will spare you a great deal of cash.

PayPal remains a decent choice for those that need to pay for things on the web like purchasing a domain, subscribing to a web-facilitating administration, or purchasing any little esteem items or administrations

When using a design that isn’t made for MailChimp, there are many problems you may run into. It will be inconvenient to try and use your own customized templates, and doing so may result in sacrificing your interface and ruining the experience.

MailChimp makes creating templates easy to use while offering beautiful designs. Here is an updated list of the top MailChimp email newsletter templates that provide style, simplicity and functionality. They include the newest and best examples of templates to use, as well as instructions at the end.

This email template is compatible with a number of major email marketing platforms, including MailChimp. It prevents emails from looking buggy on mobile devices and ensures quick and better emails for start-up founders. With 22 templates to choose from, you are sure to create an email that looks great while using a small amount of effort, time, and money. Emails will appear perfectly on any electronic device with the use of HTML code that you can edit when necessary.

Christmas is a template for the seasons, providing festive cheer. It also includes an optional animated snowstorm feature for an eye-catching header. It also includes Kbuilder 2.0, along with 4 templates containing various formats.

For a modern and clean template set, Magma would be perfect. It would be great for individuals who strive for minimalism, as the flat design creates a simple and spacious email. It contains 35 modules that you can drag and drop, and includes “Specs”, “Reviews”, “Blog”, and “Partners’.

For templates that can be multipurpose, use Liana. There are many components that make it easy for you to build your own business, market, or e-commerce email campaign. It was tested and responsive on many platforms, which ensures that you will always find something to edit to your liking.

This is one of the number one email template sets because of it’s standard. It comes with over 10 multi-purpose email templates that can be used in a variety of ways. It’s MailChimp compatible and can also be used with other widely used email marketing providers. It also contains more than 179 modules that offer thousands of possibilities and variety, ensuring that you create your template uniquely and stand out from the crowd.

With over 50 drag and drop modules, Kent also features flat, contemporary designs that would be perfect for agencies, e-commerce, and so on. Kent offers customizable templates built with standard HTML for the ability to edit before sending the email.

Emailio contains over 10 unique templates, consisting of over 60 different modules. They can be used for specific events like weddings, restaurants, product launches, and even real estate. Emailio works with the latest Outlook version (2016), which may be a problem for other pre-built email newsletter templates.

This is a more traditional email template that focuses on business. It provides sections to briefly describe your services, team members, as well as products. Moka features a variety of colors to perfectly fit with your company’s brand.

Supra has 20 customizable email templates that are all different, making it a great choice for individuals searching for templates that are prebuilt. They also contain templates that are ready to use for non-profit organizations, crowd funding, as well as resumes.

inCorp provides visuals that are very sharp and clean. It is great for communicating professionalism through your email campaign. Each update also comes with new sections and templates that you may use.

This is another template that is more business based, as it is made by the same creators as Moka. It has an easy to use the online editor that allows dragging modules in and out to be simple and straightforward. There are also premade designs that you can alter without ruining the email design.

This contemporary business template works with StampReady Builder for simple editing. Its features make for a unique module design that includes a chart bar and product pricing tables, making it ideal for agencies and other technology companies.

This template contains 59 modules that make it perfect for those looking for a classy look. It also gives you the option to subscribe to the author’s email list in order to receive an additional template every month, free of charge.

Breathe creates a design that is minimal and modern that works for a number of industries. There are also features spaces in the modules for you to display your portfolio and skills, along with a background color to make your credentials more noticeable.

This agency newsletter offers clean lines along with great default styling. It provides plenty of opportunities to edit and customize designs to your liking. It is compatible with MailChimp, StampReady, and many other templates.

Technology has dominated the market of accounting software for many years. QuickBooks is the name that everyone is familiar with because of its reliability and performance. Recently, the competition has become tough because of the introduction of Xero that is a cloud account software.

So in this race of proving to be the best bookkeeping software the developers are working day in and day out to provide the customers with the facilities. However, only one can be the winner so let us a have look.

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Both the programs are working to expand the client base and in the last few months they have come neck to neck and the growth rate has reached up to 21%. The companies are facing a strong competition because their pace of development is increasing. So here is how the two programs line up.

Product features

They are the best in the line when we have to consider the cloud-based accounting for the small business organizations. Both of them might not be perfect but Xero has won the race of the features because of the remarkable specifications that you would come across.

Many of the features that are only available in the Plus version of QuickBooks are available on all the platforms of Xero. As well as there are some specifications, that are only available in Xero. Here we have a list for you that you must consider.

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With Xero, you can accept the quotes online and this facility is not available in QuickBooks

You will get the basic stock list in all the versions of Xero

Inventory accounting is accessible in only the QuickBooks plus but in case of Xero you will get it in any version

Multi-currency, expense reports, and payment reminders are only available in Xero.

Budgeting, purchase order, recurring invoice, and many other services are available in all versions of Xero but only in the plus version of QuickBooks

Pricing

Considering the price Xero is the winner on the high end while QuickBooks is the winner at the low ends so we can say that it is a tie. If you want your customer to pay in the online invoices then the credit card processing fee of QuickBooks is higher.

There are different plans different plans offered by both the services so it is often hard to determine that which one is the best.

The basic plan of Xero starts with $9 while that of QuickBooks starts with $13

The mid-level plan of Xero is available at $30 on the other hand, QuickBooks has two different plans essentials for $27 and plus for $40

The rates for the payrolls for Xero are from $30 to 70 while that for QuickBooks is $89 to 112 depending on the plan that you will buy

Ease of use

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Xero is very easy to use. It has been developed with such perfection that you will quickly understand all the functions that are available and within a few minutes, it would seem like you have been using it for many years. Everything is well organized from the layouts to the navigation. Overall Xero is very efficient.

On the other hand, QuickBooks was good software but after its update has been launched there are some minor bugs that are affecting the efficiency. The knowledge base is not very comprehensive. Apart from that, there are some useless steps in the navigation system, which makes it difficult to use.

Available integration

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With Xero, you will get the accessibility to 400 add-ons while from QuickBooks you will hardly get 360 add-ons. The quality of the integration depends on the program so some of them will work best on Xero while other will work perfectly with QuickBooks.

Customer support

In the field of the customer service, the competition is very high among both the software. The reason is that QuickBooks is trying to match the standards of the customer support system that have been set by Xero. At first, it was hard for them but now they are catching up with the technology.

If you will pay attention towards the reviews of their previous customers regarding the customer services, you will notice that the reviews for Xero are a mixture of positive and negative. On the other hand, most of the reviews for QuickBooks are still negative that is not a very encouraging aspect.

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Xero has never struggled to keep its clients happy with the customer services. The reason is that their services are available 24/7 the entire year. So you will get the help whenever you require. While in the case of QuickBooks if you are facing an issue on Saturday night then you will have to wait for Monday morning to contact the customer support.

The customer services of QuickBooks are available from Monday to Friday from 6 am to 6 pm while on Saturday 6 am to 3 pm. The best thing is that both the software has reduced the time required for the hold so that the customers will get the solution to their issues as soon as possible. So if you are lucky you will get the chance to directly speak with the representative.

Apart from that, at Xero, you will also get the email support. Here you can get all the answers to your issues with a single email.

Final verdict

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It is hard to pick the winner but from the above comparison, you must have got the idea that Xero has more plus points as compared to QuickBooks. QBO is still making progress to grab the attention of more customers at the time when Xero is continuously increasing the customer count.

So if you are looking for the best bookkeeping software make sure that you read the comparison before taking a decision. It is important that you select the software that will meet the requirements of your business in the best possible manner.